 Today is Halloween and my daughter is dressing up like a crazy cat lady.
In the 13th century she would have been killed. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? It's amazing what fear can do especially when its conduit is religion. Fear and superstition can be passed down for centuries! How many times have you or another remarked on the black cat that just crossed your path?! In graduate school, a man studying to be a therapist told me, in all seriousness, that demons took possession of cats so to be wary of them. Years later a woman told me that black cats were associated with witchcraft and satanism so she would never own one. A couple of years ago I told a friend how interesting it was that shortly after being trained in Reiki I noticed how our neighbor's 12-year-old cat began spending oodles of time at our house wanting to be petted. She said, "Well, you know what they say about cats and evil." Clearly she did not trust cats or Reiki! All of these people are sincere, intelligent people, but their belief (or what they may even call truth) arose out of fear and superstition from around the year 1232. At that time, Pope Gregory IX wanted unity in the Church so he looked to weed out heretics and heretical beliefs (people and beliefs not conforming to the Catholic faith [now remember there was no Protestant faith at this time]). He also wanted to stop local lords and their mobs from unjustly executing people for heresy before any kind of trial was held. So he initiated the Papal Inquisition thinking it would bring more order to the process and give heretics an opportunity to return to the Church before being killed. He issued the Vox in Rama to Germany's King Henry hoping he would stop the spread of the heretical Luciferian cult. In this papal bull he mentioned some of the cult's devil-worshiping practices, including how Satan took the form of a black cat. And with that document, the demonizing of black cats and their owners began. Black cats were killed and any peasant woman who owned cats, especially black cats, was automatically suspect. Soon the killing spread to all cats as fear heightened with the Black Plague. Thinking that getting rid of evil cats would get rid of the evil disease, people unknowingly exterminated a needed predator of the rats that housed the fleas that later on many believed were to blame for the Plague. Choosing the fear-based path can have far-reaching consequences. From generation to generation others follow the fear trail marked out for them. Here in America, Europeans brought with them their fear-based beliefs about black cats and witches which fueled the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s. To this day, black cats' bad reputation continues to haunt them as shelters report that they are passed over for the brighter white and orange cats. And violence toward cats, in particular the black cat, escalates on Halloween. So let's pause (no pun intended!) for a moment and let black cats beckon us away from the path of fear & superstition. Let every cat and their owner be a reminder that we all hold such beliefs whatever person, people group, or animal we may choose to fear, blame, and even (God-forbid!) exterminate. In writing this post, I found I wanted to blame Pope Gregory IX but realized I needed to dig a little deeper into the story rather than automatically (and easily) demonizing him! Each time we catch a fear and/or superstition-based belief arising within us (who or what we blame may clue us in), let us become aware of the fork in the road. We don't have to continue down the same path tread by our ancestors. Yes, it may be harder and take longer but as Deuteronomy and Proverbs urge, we can choose the path of life with discernment, wisdom, and kindness. Black cats and crazy cat ladies will thank us. Future generations will, too.
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 You may not be ready to go on a silent retreat or sit in 20 minutes of meditation, but how about trying a taste? It's easy.
And since it's the season of pumpkin everything, let's try tasting silence through a slice of pumpkin pie! If you're not a fan of pumpkin pie, think of another food or drink you really enjoy. Now if you have a real slice of pie, great! If not, imagine tasting that first bite. Notice the flavors, texture, and temperature on your tongue. Allow yourself to savor the next few bites without rushing. What do you notice about the pie (or whatever you're savoring) that you may have missed if you had hurried through each forkful? Food and drink can rarely be savored when speed is involved, the same is true with silence. How do we taste and savor silence? With our ears. Ready to give it a try?
What do you notice now that you did not notice before you stopped and listened? Where did certain sounds come from, which ear did you hear them through? What sound most grabbed your attention? If in a quiet place, did you notice the sound of your own breathing? What was it like to do nothing but listen? How did your mind and the rest of your body respond? This is being present. It's a meditation practice. And yes, it counts. True, it's a great way to enter into a silent retreat or centering prayer meditation but if it happens to be the only spiritual practice you consistently engage this week or this month, that's fine! Just taste and see how pausing to listen and savor the sounds around you affect your soul. You never know, the next time you stop and savor the silence, you, like the prophet Elijah, may hear God's voice in a gentle whisper!  A poem I wrote right after a time of listening prayer six years ago. It recently came to mind as I was thinking about meditation. Meditation can calm the mind. In doing so, perhaps it offers an opportunity for the soul to remind us of what it's known & trusted since we were ages five and one!
God, I pray that Lainey and Alex come to know You They already do. Okay God, then I pray they come to trust You. They already do. Then God, help them not to forget. (Pause) Amen.  My son was angry about getting family photos taken. This probably isn't far off from the way I looked on my own rage-filled day when I finally admitted all my ways of prayer had stopped "working." A poem written in 2013 about what led me to meditation & other contemplative practices years ago.
All my old ways of finding God kept failing And one rage-filled day I stopped trying Sat down wondering if I was worth finding Let go of seeking and began trusting And breathing. Many are the ways seeming right to a man I started recalling My ways kept putting me in charge of the finding who the Psalmist found futile escaping.  After a conversation with a man who said he was only interested in meditation if it led to levitation, I went home and wrote this short poem in the fall of 2013.
A man once asked me Will meditation lead to levitation? “I don't think so,” I said, “I've been trying to rise above my faults and weaknesses for years!” One day in silent prayer on my quest toward the clouds to touch the face of God I looked down. There I saw Jesus with rolled up shirt-sleeves, mud up to his elbows standing in the place I'd just left. I don't know about levitation but meditation led me back to the sod, for in the place of fault and weakness I saw the face of God. |
AuthorKasey is a scarf, ball and club juggling spiritual director just outside of Nashville, TN. Play helps her Type-A, Enneagram 1 personality relax, creating space for poetry and other words to emerge. She also likes playing with theological ideas like perichoresis, and all the ways we're invited into this Triune dance. Archives
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